Georgia fans react in the second half during College Football Playoff National Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Georgia Bulldogs didn’t win, but playing on the national sports stage can provide other benefits to universities. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Kempner: Close counts in horseshoes and, maybe, UGA football

Maybe the university affiliated with the Georgia Bulldogs won something after all from the college football championship game, no matter what the stupid scoreboard said.

Some economics professors say winning lots of games in a big college sport and landing on a national stage can goose up university admissions applications, improve the quality of admitted students and boost financial donations.

I imagine the University of Georgia had an early inkling of the potential upside.

Before the Georgia-Alabama game, UGA’s homepage was plastered with staff and alumni memories of the school’s 1980 national championship.

And right below it? Links for how to financially “Commit to Georgia.”

Where there’s an emotional connection, money isn’t far behind.

But will it really pay off for big, beautiful UGA?

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Some, according to Michael Anderson, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley who has studied such things.

Had Georgia won the championship it probably would have gained a bit more, Anderson said. Still, the game gave UGA national attention for hours, just counting the game itself.

“It’s free advertising for your school,” Anderson said.

He analyzed records from 1986 to 2009 (so before the college football playoff system began) and found “robust evidence” that football success increases athletic donations and the number of college applicants, lowers a school’s acceptance rate and increases the average SAT score of incoming classes.

Three for three

Winning an additional three games in a season might lead to a 3 percent increase in admissions applications, while donations to the athletic program could go up 17 percent, he found.

Two other researchers, Devin and Jaren Pope, found that having a successful college basketball or football team increases the number of prospective students who submit their SAT scores to the university.

They concluded that schools that landed in the Final Four of the NCAA basketball tournament or in the top 10 of the final Associated Press poll in football saw the number of submitted SAT scores increase an average of 6 to 8 percent the following year. (And 11 percent for the football team at the top of the rankings.)